


Silent Mountains and Hidden Valleys

by Squeeful



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Gen, International Women's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeeful/pseuds/Squeeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Posted for the LJ community Tea and Swiss Roll International Women's Day ficlet challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent Mountains and Hidden Valleys

How she hated him when he laughed, loud and powerful and demanding, at all the little people who were not him.

“You bed with me, you follow me.” He says it like she had a choice.

“For a village squabble?” The incredulity in his voices angers her more than his laughter. It was not a village squabble to the villagers he had killed, her aunts and cousins and the two brothers she'd lost when he had taken her.

Katunda stayed silent while her remaining brother took up a gun and armed herself with the only weapon she had. He had selected her for her looks and for the message it sent to her father and her tribe. Let him fall by it.

So she took power where she could and planned, perfecting every movement for the highest calculated grace, the more to captivate and charm. She learned how to make him feel desired while hiding the revolution behind her lowered lids and smeared on a mask of demure beauty every night with the shea butter.

She practiced at innocence and calm reserve and knew that he, a man, would not know the difference. Even his precious Western allies did not think to suspect her until it was nearly too late. There was a joyless satisfaction in that, if nothing else. Her mis-step, she knew, was trusting the death of her husband to others, but the ugliness of death was too known for her to do it herself, even to him.

“Katunda, then you have _earned_ my head.” She would not take it if he offered it to her on a platter. She wanted no tokens of admiration from him.

When they led her away and to a certain end, she kept her head high, collared by her fur ruff, and stared down her captors until they dropped their eyes.

She wasn’t alone in her plans.


End file.
